The Violet Plate, and its surrounding area were quiet. As they entered the inn, Hirrus was struck by the sudden thought that Dahlia wouldn’t be in the room. That she would have snuck out and tried to return to Yenon. He’d never be able to find her. To help her. She’d be at the mercy of the elements or of the adventurers like the one from the graveyard, who saw Yenon’s injured state as something to celebrate.

But Dahlia was fine. Whether under her own decision tree, or Hirrus' authority as a guard, she remained confined to the inn room at the Violet Plate.

She was seated on the edge of her bed when they returned. Dahlia looked up as Hirrus entered, and then immediately looked to Alric followed him like a shadow just after high noon. There was a curious smile on her face.

Hirrus did his best to introduce the two. “Alric, this is Dahlia,” he said. For a moment he was unsure of what to tell the adventurer. What information would be useful? “She’s my neighbor, and the only other survivor of Yenon.”

“Yo,” Alric said, giving Dahlia a wave and a smile. He looked her over quickly before turning back to Hirrus. “You know, I think this answers a lot of questions, actually.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been on the fence for the last hour on if you’re actually a bugged NPC or an RPer who’s way too deep into this. I think I’m leaning more towards NPC now.” He gestured towards Dahlia. “Players can’t get pregnant.”

Hirrus didn’t understand about half of what Alric was saying, so he dismissed it. “Regardless,” he said, “Dahlia, this is Alric. He’s going to be helping me to find Last of the Strong.”

Her brow furrowed and Dahlia gripped the blanket on either side of her body as if clinging for dear life. “You’re in over your head,” she said in a queer tone, the words forced between her clenched teeth. “You’re messing with forces you don’t understand. Please consider the consequences of your actions, Hirrus, and not just the ones that you like. You don’t know what you’re doing and how it could affect the whole world.”

He furrowed his brow at her. The words she spoke were stilted and sudden. Forced and yet carefully considered and worded. Like they were part of her decision tree, but not coming from her.

It was as if someone had handed her a note to read.

Hirrus wanted to comfort her. Or kill her. He wasn’t sure which urge was stronger.

Dahlia was a weakness, but one he bore as part of his duty to Yenon. This invasion wasn’t her fault, just like her fragile pregnancy that had slowed them down wasn’t her fault either. He couldn’t punish her for something she couldn’t control.

Instead of approaching, Hirrus forced himself to lean against the wall next to the door. “Dahlia, someone is trying to reach me through you. As if I couldn’t tell the difference between their words and yours.”

She shook her head, then nodded, then shook it again. “This isn’t about whose words are whose. This is about what you’re doing. Something went wrong, you can’t deny that. With every step you’ve taken since leaving Yenon, you’ve made it worse instead of better.”

“What’s going on,” Alric asked, looking between Hirrus and Dahlia like they were speaking another language.

Hirrus took a deep breath and pushed off from the wall. “I don’t know who or what is manipulating your decision tree,” he said, “but this isn’t going to have the desired effect.” He walked across the room, kneeling down next to her to look into her eyes. Searching for some foreign entity in her gaze. “If someone is trying to stop me with words, it’s only because their weapons have proven ineffective. If they had tried words first, I might be more inclined to listen, but they set the rules for engagement already. They wanted this settled with blood when they thought blood would work, and I am disinclined to let them change their tune now that they know it won’t.”

“It’s not that,” Dahlia snapped. She grimaced and then smoothed the angered expression from her face with a visible effort of will. “It’s not entirely that. The words may be theirs, and I may not have a choice in voicing them, but that doesn’t mean I disagree. You’re stirring up trouble, and the more you stir the more you get. You may think you have a handle on things now, but they will continue to grow until they crush you, no matter how righteous your cause.”

Hirrus felt a ghostly smile cross his lips. She cared. Julissa would be so happy to see her trying to help, to try to bring Hirrus back from the brink of potential self destruction.

Thoughts of his wife, however, hardened his resolve. “They’re reaching to me through you because my cause will not be stopped. They’re gods, after a fashion. If they’re reaching me through you with empty threats, then they’ve told me something they shouldn’t have. They’ve told me they can’t stop me.”

“What makes you so sure of that?” Dahlia said. The anger was gone from her tone, and he got the impression that this was truly Dahlia speaking, unencumbered by whoever had been trying to tug her strings.

Hirrus looked away from her inquiring eyes, to look towards the room’s single small window. From his kneeling state on the floor he could see the tiniest sliver of pure blue sky. “I can think of solutions they haven’t tried,” he said, finally. “If they’re not trying them, that means that, even with their superior knowledge base, they know those solutions wouldn’t work.”

“What sort of solutions?” Alric asked. He flinched when Hirrus looked back at him suddenly. “So that we can, uh, prepare to deal with them.”

“They could mass the Hari military against me. Even if it was just all the guards in the city. If they hunted me as an outlaw, it could end with me in a cell no matter how hard I can fight. Even if I were willing to hurt my fellow guards.” He clenched a fist and brought it down hard on his leg. “Even though it wouldn’t be their fault.” Hirrus shook his head. “But if they aren’t doing that, it means it won’t work. The guards or army won’t see me as an enemy because I’m a guard myself. Or was. I don’t seem to have access to my guard skills any longer.”

“You’re actually an NPC, then?” Alric asked. “Straight-up just a bugged-out town guard?” He regarded Hirrus with a grin of nearly childlike wonder. “That’s fuckin’ rad as hell.”

Hirrus heaved himself up to his feet with a sigh. “I suppose that if you are staying I owe you a proper explanation.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Alric said, but then he shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter though. I’m not gonna withhold my help if you don’t want to talk about it.”

“I won’t ask you to stand with me if you don’t know what you’re standing for. And what you’re standing beside.”

“Behind,” Alric said. He held his hands up in the air defensively when Hirrus glared at him. “I want to make it very clear that I intend to stand behind you a very healthy distance. The last thing I want is for there to be any misunderstanding about my positioning vis-à-vis your mission of ass kicking.”

Hirrus heaved a sigh and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. During all of his time as a guard, he had come to hate adventurers. They were a tiresome lot who only cared for themselves. Who used the goodwill of his town and then left when they were through. No adventurer ever settled down, or helped repair any damage. They just took and took.

Alric was different. Still quite frustrating, but different.

“Come,” Hirrus said, gesturing towards the small table in the room. “Have a seat. I’ll explain everything I can.”

Dahlia settled herself back down into bed, keeping a hand on her pregnant belly as she made herself more comfortable. She did not try to stop them, and Hirrus wondered if those who controlled what she said could make her intervene at any moment.

It was a dangerous thought.

Alric joined Hirrus at the table like a stray dog looking for scraps. He seemed so eager.

Hirrus steepled his fingers as he tried to consider where to begin.

“As you may have assumed, Dahlia and I are not adventurers,” Hirrus said. “We don’t - or didn’t - have the ability to absorb and use Arcana. Furthermore, we are bound by our decision trees. They command our actions and our responses to our environment. The decision tree dictates our actions at all times, though we’re allowed a little leeway about specifics.”

“Yeah, uh, not to derail, but the devs got some shit about that. And by some, I mean a lot.”

Hirrus didn’t know what that meant, and he knew if he stopped to ask it would waste time. “I am no longer bound by those rules,” Hirrus continued, “and I don’t fully understand why. The beast that killed my wife went after Dahlia right after. My decision tree told me that it was outside my vision, and therefore beyond my ability to react to. It told me to just go back to what I was doing. I don’t know how, but I ignored it. I pushed through its orders in order to give my life to save Dahlia.”

“Give your life… Does that mean you died?”

Hirrus glanced at Dahlia. She looked away, as if she knew the answer.

“I did. But somehow, for some reason, I went through some sort of… I’m not sure what. It isn’t important. I came to outside of town, as if nothing had happened. Well. Mostly as if nothing had happened. I was level twenty before I died. When I returned, I was level one, though my stats didn’t change much.”

“And you learned Arcana Absorption,” Alric said.

“I did.” Hirrus ran a fingernail across the polished wood grain of the table. “I don’t understand how or why, though that appears to be a running theme surrounding these events.”

“You learned what?” Dahlia said, sitting up suddenly. She winced, grabbing her belly and adjusting her positioning. “What did you say?”

Hirrus took a breath, trying to gather his thoughts. “I learned Arcana Absorption,” he said, “I don’t know how or why, but I have learned Arcana from the adventurers I’ve felled.”

“So you’re an adventurer now, then.” She looked at him curiously.

“Maybe. But others still see me as a… what they call an ‘en-pee-see’. I don’t know. This is all… It’s not important.”

“NPC,” Alric said in a patient tone. “Three letters.”

Hirrus growled low in his chest. “Not important.”

Dahlia laughed, the short, derisive laugh of nobility. “Suddenly developing Arcana Absorption seems quite important.”

Alric nodded emphatically. “Also, coming back from the dead. I know that’s not uncommon for adventurers but for an NPC that’s really fucking weird.”

“It’s not as important as my goal,” Hirrus clarified. “Whatever happened to me has given me this opportunity to bring justice to Last of the Strong. I don’t need to understand why or how or what it means. I only need to do what needs to be done.”

“By Tuesday,” Alric said.

Something tugged at Hirrus from the back of his mind. Where his decision tree lay impotent and mostly dormant. “Why?” The word snaked from his mouth, drawn out in anger. “What happens on Tuesday?”

“Uh. I don’t know,” Alric said, his eyes wide. “Just… You know. Pattern recognition? I don’t know how to even begin to explain.” He waved both hands dismissively. “You know what? Forget it. Forget I said anything. I was just guessing. Nevermind.”

“Hm.” Hirrus tried to read the obvious panic on Alric’s face, but discerned nothing of substance. “I don’t plan on it taking that long, at any rate. My revenge is not one that will be served cold. I’m not playing any games with them. I will find them, and I will kill them.”

“Timeline aside,” Alric said, “I’m not here to take notes and submit a bug report. I’m here to see some crazy shit.” He patted the plate armor on his chest. “And to get some fuckin’ sick-ass gear upgrades. I don’t care if you’re not a real person. Whatever I can do to help-”

Dahlia leaned forward, her curiosity plain on her face. “Not a real person? What do you mean by that?”

“Well, I mean…” Alric suddenly stammered, his momentum lost. “You’re NPCs, right? I mean. You don’t have… Uh. Meatspace bodies. You’re…” He paused, collecting himself. “I’m not sure how to put this into words without, you know. Getting into it.”

Hirrus carefully pulled his axe off of his hip and put it on the table. The heavy weapon made a loud sound as it hit the wood, even though he set it down with near-reverent gentleness.

The desired effect was achieved, however. Alric’s face started to turn red at the sight of the weapon.

“What I mean is,” Alric said, swallowing hard. “You exist only in this world. You don’t correspond to… Um… A non-digital physical body? Except the server, I guess? I don’t know.”

“The more you say it, the more you calling me an NPC feels like putting my life beneath yours. The same sort of logic that allowed Last of the Strong to justify what they did.” He lifted his axe off the table slowly. “They said that Yenon was a nothing town and that nobody cared for it, even when I had already made it abundantly clear that I was from Yenon, and that I cared for it.”

“Yenon is well-cared for,” Dahlia said suddenly. “With you looking out for it.”

Alric let out a hiccup of a nervous laugh.

“I don’t mean it that way,” he said. “Honest. You’ve made it abundantly clear that there’s more to you than just the, uh… Decision tree, you called it? You have a will without it. A mind. Feelings. That, uh, makes you a real person. No matter what anyone says. Least of all me.” The man was rambling. “You shouldn’t care what I have to say. I’m nobody. I mean, I’ve only got a few hours of playtime and I’ve been subbed for a month. I don’t know why you’d take anything I say seriously. Especially not something ridiculous. I clearly don’t know anything about-”

“Enough,” Hirrus said, returning his axe to his belt. “I understand that you feel remorse for your words. Or, at least, you’re frightened enough of me not to repeat them. Just know that while Last of the Strong are the subject of my ire for now, I’m a strong believer in adhering to the spirit of the law, not the letter. If you make yourself to be like them, you will share their fate.”

Alric swallowed and nodded.

“For now, though,” Hirrus said, “if you believe me a real person - and my cause just - we both need to work together to locate another trail towards Last of the Strong.” He looked over at Dahlia. “I think I might have one more straw to grasp at.”